 If a woman likes BTS and also finds Asian guys attractive, does she have a fetish? Or is it something else? I have to say, you know, if you are being treated with a fetish, it is still better than being treated like a rotten piece of lettuce. Alright everybody, we're gonna talk about this post on Reddit. Basically a non-Asian woman has made a post asking people, do I have a fetish or not? So her post reads that she's not a huge K-pop fan, but she is going through a BTS phase as she's gone through a different phase of other genres of music as well. But she said she hides it from Asian guys that she personally knows so she won't get called a Koreaboo or Fetishizer. Is that even common though? Because I don't know, maybe I think this phenomenon is so new, I don't really have a lot of like reps or patterns to like draw off of. But like, if a girl is in a workplace that's not Asian and says she like is going to the BTS concert, do all the Asian guys get together at work and go, Hoho, you Koreaboo, like you are like, you like us, like I know you like so obsessed with my culture. Uh, yeah, we're gonna discuss that in this video. So please hit that like button, check out other episodes of the hot pop boys. Ask yourself, do you have a Asian fetish just because you like BTS? But you know what's not a fetish is Smaala Sauce. Check it out, it's shipping out right now. I gotta go back to my previous point, Andrew. I do not think it's at a point now where Asian guys are sick of it because it just started and you could argue that outside of the internet, a lot of Asian guys have still yet to experience this in real life. I'm not saying none of them have. If you are a 10 out of 10, a 9 out of 10 Kpop clone and you go hang out in LAK town or New York, Korea town, you may have seen this manifest IRL, but a lot of guys are just hearing about this fetishization of Asian men on the internet. So, so I got two questions for you, David. One, are you even calling it a fetish? And number two, is it, let's be clear, when women are fetishizing men, is that different than when often men fetishize women? So those are the two main questions for me because do we need to use the word fetish? If you just like BTS and you find Asian guys attractive, is that actually a fetish? And is that a, is that a harmful fetishization? Because some fetishizations are more harmful than others. Let me just give my main point as far as like a quick takeaway before we get into the comments section. Andrew, I do not like people throwing around this word. Fetishization is incredibly complex and it probably needs like 500 to 1000 additional words to provide the context, the historical context, the applicability in the given situation. I think a lot of people nowadays, they want to sound smart, but they don't want to do the research to delve deep into these hyper nuance and layers dynamics. So they just use, oh, it's problematic. It's fetishization where I'm like, oh, there's so much that goes into it. I'm like, but then nobody wants to talk about the power dynamics. Like you said, when women fetishize a man, it is different than when a man fetishizes a woman. So I just think that everybody is like just throwing these words around now. Right, right. You know, overall to the OP, it doesn't sound like she has a fetish. I mean, all right. Here's the definition of fetish, by the way, a form of sexual desire in which gratification is strongly linked to a particular object or activity in a part of the body other than the sexual organs. Number two, an inanimate object worship for its supposed, supposed magical powers or it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit. Okay, so here would be a phrase and I think this is for anybody out there who's a non Asian or Asian who's questioning whether they have a fetish or not. Ultimately, if you just watch BTS and you're a fan of BTS and anybody can be a fan of BTS. But if you like, in your mind, you have this desire like, oh my gosh, I only want to date a Jungkook and I need my man to roleplay as a K-pop character. And I just want him to like do the dance and learn everything. That kind of sounds like a fetish. But if you just say, hey, you know, me being really into BTS kind of opened my eyes to Asian guys. And now my boyfriend's Vietnamese. That's not a fetish at all. It's like you got to draw the line somewhere. So that's where I'm drawing the line. Those are two different statements. One is more fetishizing. One is not. So you're saying that if women only are obsessed with men that look like Jungkook or Jackson Wang or etc. etc. There's a couple guys with this like pretty similar look that is a fetish. Yeah. And if they only want to date that and they even if they date Asian guy like let's say date me who's like, you know, I'm Korean passing but I don't look like Jungkook. If they're like, Andrew, well, I'll date you if you dress up like Jungkook. Then I'm going to be like, all right, that's that's pretty weird. But is that also them just trying to shift you into what they like? So that's why I'm saying it's so murky. I don't know if they like buy you this shirt that's the takedown version of this Balenci or YSL shirt or whatever the Jungkook has. And then, you know what I mean? Like you, you're the takedown Jungkook. It just depends on their intentions with the guys. Of course everybody else fetish verse preference. You got to draw the line somewhere. But one is a creepy one gets creepy and weird and the other isn't. All right. Right. Right. Anyway, let's just get into the comments section. I don't think that there are going to be clear cut answers to this because it's just like yes and no, but probably not. Right. This main comment is basically breaking down how the fetishization of Asian women and black men in America is quite different than how women are into BTS and K-pop right now. So basically he breaks it down. He says when we think of the two fetishized demographics in the West, black men and Asian women, they have became fetishized in very objectifying ways through the lens of a white dominant culture and through the systems through pornography and everything like that. Yo, those are the two biggest interracial fields in pornography and like family show guys. But let's be honest. There's a huge section for seeing black men and there's a huge section for seeing Asian women. And I believe you know why that is because I'm just going to keep it real here guys. White people are often centered as normal. Black people are viewed as hyper masculine and Asian people are viewed as hyper feminine. Yes. And that is essentially how that people like the extreme. So to put it plainly, he's saying that the Asian fetishization of Asian women and the fetishization of black men in American media was not controlled by those groups. Asian women and black men had very little say in how they were being portrayed and those stereotypes being pushed. Now what's different is that Asian media is from Asia and it's from the motherland. It is not being dictated by Hollywood. And it wasn't Asian American media that dictated it. It's not even Asian American media that's dictating. It is literally Asia. It's actually a lot of people who like may not even understand these impacts that they're having. Like they might be like that is not their primary consideration. So their primary consideration is probably capital extraction from localized Asia markets. Number one, exactly. Just like in American media, it's kind of hard to find a Ken Watanabe or a Hiroki Sonata type character because those guys are from Asia. They're from Japan. They're from Japan. It's also hard to find a lot of BTS like guys in America because BTS is from Korea. I would say you almost see more BTS style clones nowadays than you see Hiroki Sonata Ken Watanabe like Samurai Zen. Right, that's Samurai Zen. The Bushido Blade guys. Yes. So do you think that if a girl loves the almost the ancient archetypes of the Samurai Ronin, like the Ken Watanabe or a Hiroki Sonata. There's a couple other Asian guys from every Asian country that are in that ancient archetype. Is that a is that fetishization or is that like you just love guys from the Edo period or what is that? I think those guys to me Ken Watanabe and Sonata, they're just you're just cool dudes. Like anybody thinks they're cool. Like even a non Asian dudes would watch their characters and be like, yeah, they're pretty cool. Now here's my thing. If again, I just got a thing for Ronin. If you only want to date dudes who are Korean that look like K-pop stars, that's it's that's toe in the line of fetishization. But if you just like Asian guys and now you're like, well, they don't have to be Korean. I like a Chinese guy, Vietnamese guy or even a Filipino guy looks like that. Like that's just my preference. That's hot look. I think the humanity has to transfer over to the entire group of people. Yes. Like you can't just be like isolated and people do this to minorities or any group all the time. They're like, I don't. I still don't like that group, but I really am sexually attracted to that specific sub sub genre fraction of that. And a lot of the fetishization of Asian women came along with some dis despise of Asian guys where a lot of men who like Asian women are like, oh, I love Asian women. They're so feminine and soft. Asian dudes whack. Hey, get out of my face. Yo, that reminds me of the snacky Chan song from a long time ago where he goes, uh, they love my sister, hate my brother, kill my father, have the nerve to make fun of my mother. He just love my sister, hate my brother, despise my father, had the nerve to make fun of my mother. Racism is a bitch. I'm a smack. Shout out to snacky Chan. That's just reminded me of that. This comment said most of the rhetoric around fetishizing Asian guys are made up by Asian girls and pick me Asian guys trying to please Asian girls. If you listen to kpop, of course you're going to be exposed to more Asian guys just like how girls exposed to Hollywood like white guys. David, what is the pick me Asian girl? What is the pick me Asian guy referring to? I because that's a term that's used on the internet. It's another one of those terms, man. There's like 700 words of explanation needed to explain. I believe it is a term for Asian American males that take liberal Asian American female, boba liberal viewpoints so they can date the boba liberal girls like Asian guys so that they can fall in line and get attention for that. Yes. Yes. Yes. I believe I think so. That's what I thought. But I'm not even sure to be honest. I'm not that like, dude, I'm more living a real life out in the city. Okay. I'm like, I'm starting to get the internet terms and starting to go over my head. Somebody said no one calls out people for being whitewash and liking Hollywood Korea boo fetishizer only come from jealous individuals. Is that true? Like nobody really says like, oh, a Hollywood lover is immediately whitewashed. Although you there could be some of the correlation. Yeah, I know what they saying. Yeah. Yeah. So just because you like K-pop or you like BTS, I don't think no longer am I going to you? You're not just dude. You're not a fetish. I'll say this. You know why it's different is because BTS and all this new school K-pop or K drama culture specifically K-pop. It's a new culture even to Korea. Hollywood is like an entire like picturesque version of a civilization. Like if you love Hollywood, there's Hollywood movies about literally every single imaginable topic on earth. BTS is literally just in my opinion. It's almost like a more elevated in sync or Backstreet Boys. David, this commenter says something else. He goes, well, my last three girlfriends have been white girls who either had a big BTS obsession or flat out told me they have a thing for Asians. I think I'm being fetishized. Right. So this guy, I mean, it kind of goes back to, I think a lot of guys don't mind it. Nine out of 10 guys score getting fetishized. Even if it is a fetish, they don't mind it. Even if it is, you know, and like we said, these lines and these sections on this spectrum are very murky. When does it start blending? What's the cutoff point? Even if it's in the fetishization category, like a lot of my black friends that I grew up with, sometimes they were in relationships where they knew they were being fetishized by this blonde, you know, sorority, delta, delta, delta type girl, but they were cool with it. They'll take it. They'll take it. Well, I think most dudes, because let's be honest, when men are fetishized by women, it usually doesn't go into the dangerous lane. It's not as creepy. Although it's like maybe a fetish, men, they're not like, they don't feel like their safety is at stake, right? Right. Which is unlike when women get fetishized and obsessed over from a man, it can feel more dangerous and it has been more dangerous. I mean, the stats are there, right? Right. I guess that's why to be blunt about it, a lot of Asian guys and a lot of men in general, even if they feel like they're getting fetishized a little bit, they'll take it. Right. White men get fetishized by all different types of women around the world. Let's be honest. But did they complain? No. They, in fact, just... They just use it to their advantage. They just become a passport, bro, and utilize the arbitrage. So, unfortunately, that is the situation. Yeah. I mean, I'll say this. The only time I heard my black friends complain about it is they were like, oh, yeah, these girls just want to get with me when I'm young. But when we get... They don't want to marry me. Right, right, right. But then I feel like almost the fetishization for Asian guys because it's so based off this, like, ultra-great boyfriend that can sing and dance but isn't problematic. It's almost like the non-Asian women want to marry the Asian guys first. Like, they almost want to go for the marriage. That's what I've been... Because it's kind of like opposite stereotypes in a way. You know what? You know what? I think that for some women, they like to taste the rainbow and Asian guys are finally part of the rainbow. Right. Some people want to taste the rainbow. Other people want to live in the rainbow. Right, right, right. Last but not least, somebody said, you know, back before all this K-pop stuff, it was more like, like, you look like a Japanese soccer player I like and I want to go out with you. And no, I did not complain. And someone said, what Japanese soccer players are you talking about? People knew about that stuff back then. And somebody just said, no, there was people that were fans of, like, that world that were, like, more niche before K-pop. Sounds like that was from overseas, like, outside of America. Yeah, because no American women were following Japanese soccer players. But anyways, yeah, listen, guys, there's all different levels to it. I think, you know, we made our main points and this is just us having an honest conversation about it. There's different levels of fetishization. Not everything is a fetish. And also, when guys get fetishized by women, it is a different power dynamic than when women get fetishized by men. We need to call out the fetishization that leads to danger and a lack of safety and the creepiness. But if you just like BTS by itself, that is not a fetish. Just by itself. Oh, no, no, no. And I don't think that she needs to hide the fact that she's jamming out to June Cook's American stuff, his Korean stuff from her Korean or Asian coworkers. If Asian guys can just be now on the list of normal Asian things that you're into or normal things that are normal for people to like, can K-Pops be somewhere on that list now? Like if a girl likes Latin guys and she happens to be more into either traditional things like tango or salsa, merengue, or she happens to be into more modern things like reggaeton, do you think the Latin guy is going to complain? Or she really likes sports or hip hop and then she's into black guys. Or she really likes Hollywood and hockey and baseball and she's really into white guys or country music. And now it's just like, it's okay for a girl because there's so much globally consumed high-ranked media coming out of Korea to be into like a BTS or a K-pop guy. And then you're just, I guess the closest thing within her rings of Saturn in her IRL that personifies. No, maybe it opens her up to all different types of Asian guys. You don't have to be a Korean K-pop looking dude. Maybe you're just an Asian guy and it just opened her up to Asian culture and I think that that's great. That's what media does. Hey guys, let us know what you think in the comment section below. I think these things, they're very difficult to explain. Like I said, people, you overuse the, you know, the reductive words, but that's where we're at right now. We encourage debate. Until next time, we're the Hop Hop Boys. We out. Peace.